Film #13: Definitely Maybe

“Wait a second Eric. This is a romantic comedy. Men shouldn’t be watching romantic comedies.” Thank you misogynistic reader for your viewpoint. I’ll just pretend you dont exist.

I happen to have seen an obscene amount of “chick-flicks” (as they have been so dubbed by…someone)…totaling (after listing them on paper) at about 74! After finding out how many romantic comedies I had seen, I reflected on the fact that I grew up wedged between with two sisters, as the middle child, and concluded that this was not that, “unusual.” Some guys who grow up with two sisters exert extreme manliness and overcompensate. Some become comfortable with their “feminine sides.” Others are just exposed to more women than most boys who grow up with brothers. This is the take that I subscribe to.

This in mind, I didn’t mind watching romantic comedies, despite the ridiculously annoying and backwards message that they give to their viewers about love/relationships.

Definitely Maybe is about a man who is telling his daughter the elaborate story about how he met her mother. The daughter is in the middle of a divorce between the main actor, played by Ryan Reynolds, and the mother. The story weaves and winds between Ryan’s character, William Hayes, engaging in one relationship and then jumping to the next. As life takes hold, nothing seems certain for Will’s love life and the mystery of his daughters mother draws out for virtually te entire film.

I watched this movie with a fellow roommate who enjoys a good romantic comedy and a roommate’s girlfriend. The girlfriend described the movie in many ways as “cute” and “awww.” I just thought that it was a modern commentary on how relationships nowadays are realistically turning out, and how no man’s journey to find the women to spend the rest of his life with is easy. It’s messy, and complicated, and tricky to navigate the choppy waters. There is usually at least one redeemable thing to pull out of a “chick-flick” and that was mine.